Teenager remains interested in caged pet

A sixteen year old girl from Hendon in North London has stunned observers by remaining attentive and affectionate towards the pet rabbit that she promised to love forever back when she was eleven.

Five years on, and despite moving on to secondary school, passing through adolescence and becoming interested in boys, music and shopping, Jennifer Timpson has broken with teenage convention by failing to abandon the pet to a life of stinking squalor in a rarely visited hutch at the bottom of the garden. ‘We are very worried about her’ said her mother. ‘All her brothers and sisters had pets and became progressively less attentive to them as they reached puberty. Danny’s pet rat didn’t even have any water towards the end, it just did the best it could sucking the moisture from the urine soaked sawdust. Sally’s hamster had been dead for a month before she even noticed. But with Jennifer it’s like there’s some key part of her brain that’s not working, that has kept her caring for this rabbit, cleaning it out, giving it fresh vegetables and letting it out for regular periods of exercise.’

Jennifer said that she promised that she would always look after the rabbit and that just because she was a primary school pupil when she gave her word, that didn’t mean she should behave any differently now. ‘She is planning to go and live in the rainforests to protect endangered species or something when she grows up’ said her distraught parents. ‘Like how much money is there in that?? It doesn’t matter though because her brothers and sisters will still be here to look after us in our old age’ said Mrs Timpson. ‘The others are all really good children. They have promised that they will take great care of us when we are old and infirm – and definitely won’t leave us abandoned in a dingy flat with no food or care for weeks on end.’